郁单瀅  danying

Danying Yu (b. 1997, Shanghai) works in London

Danying’s artistic practice spans sculpture, installation, drawing, and photography. Her work explores material improvisation within transitional living environments, framing these spatial tactics as forms of embodied knowledge and decolonial spatial thinking. Rather than aiming to represent or intervene, she is drawn to everyday ‘constructions’ that arise when space is shaped not through formal planning, but through necessity, adaptation, and constrained access to material infrastructures — especially in migrant and marginalised urban contexts.

Through multi-sited fieldwork, Danying engages in a cyclical and generative process of observation, translation, and creation — an approach that weaves together epistemic inquiry and material experimentation. Her practice does not seek to claim or resolve the complexities of lived space, but instead reflects upon them through sculptural forms. By recontextualising vernacular ‘spatial gestures’ and working with found and modest materials, she develops a sculptural language that resonates with spatial agency, improvised architectures, and the aesthetics of lived experience.

EDUCATION 
2019-2021
MA, Sculpture, Royal College of Art, London

2015-2019 
BA, Public Art, East China Normal University, Shanghai
                       

EXHIBITION
2024

Curiosity, Care, and Participation, Times 101, Huangbian Village, Guangzhou, China

Welcome to the UK, Ugly Duck, London, UK

2023
Art On Loop, The Lovers and Leaders Space, Berlin, Germany

2022
New Youth,  The 4th Academic Experimental Art Documentary Exhibition, Taoxichuan Art Gallery, Jingdezhen, China
Railing Codex, Pararailing, Current Plans, Hong Kong

2021
Good Stuff - Exchange of Waste, fRUITYSPACE, Beijing, China
Strange Fairy Tales, Wenda Gallery,  Yunnan, China
PROXY, 4 Cromwell Place, London, UK
The Symbiotic Planet, Salone del Mobile, Palazzo Litta, Milan, Italy

2020
TANK ART Festival,  Tank Shanghai,  Shanghai
Art Plus (A+) Shanghai International Fair, World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center, Shanghai, China
a_fish_you_have_already_caught, BAKIIBAK, Hastings, UK
On The White Wall: 20 Litre Interior and Exterior Wall Paint, M P Birla Millenium Gallery, London, UK

2019
Future Lab, West Bund, Shanghai, China
Work in Progress show , Royal College of Art, Kensington, London, UK
15th Anniversary, Himalayas Museum, Shanghai, China
Boutique, Depot Space 寄存处, Shanghai, China

2018 
Sequential,  ECNU (East China Normal University),  Shanghai,  China
STUD - ENT - IO,  NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti),  Milan

2017 
The Festival of Insignificance,  ECNU (East China Normal University),  Shanghai,  China

RESIDENCY

CONTACT
Inquires: danying.pot@gmail.com